he was once america's military sweetheart but now his not so secret extramarital affair has cost general petraeus his job but is the mainstream media still in love with him you know. so what exactly does democracy look like well it could be a group of occupy protesters collecting enough money to buy consumer debt from the big banks and then forgiving those americans beholden to it i will tell you about the latest on people like jubilee that is rolling into town. and the u.s. pauses for a day to remember the extraordinary sacrifices american troops made on the

battlefield but while life resumes and wars rage on our team takes a closer look at battlefield america and the homelessness suicides and mental illness these men and women fight when they return from war. well good evening it's monday november twelfth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm christine for is now and you're watching our t.v. . well over the last few days there has been quite a bit of fallout over the resignation of cia director general david petraeus over an extramarital affair but according to a select few the affair with the woman who was not his wife is not the major issue here the bigger problem they argue is the affair the general has been having with the media as a result a whole lot of questions that probably should have been asked about general petraeus as job and especially about that attack in benghazi libya that killed

ambassador chris stevens were not asked here's something we wondered back on september eighteenth but here's an interesting detail in a public detail if you take a look at the u.s. state department's web site which we did provide a list of all u.s. embassies consulates and diplomatic missions strangely not listed the diplomatic mission and benghazi but a quick search on the site will turn up numerous other diplomatic missions in the u.s. the ones that were taking part in well now with the news of the alleged affair with general petraeus biographer paula broadwell we want to take a critical look at a few additional aspects of this case including the security aspect questions now began just beginning to trickle out about the unprecedented access broadwell may have had especially in light of some remarks she made just a few weeks ago back on october twenty sixth at the university of denver. the facts that came out today were that the ground forces there at the cia annex which is

different from the consulate were requesting reinforcements if they were were questing the it's called the sinks in extremist extremist force group of delta force operators are very most talented guys we have in the military they could have or they could have come and reinforce the consulate in the cia annex that were under attack now i don't know if a lot of you heard this but the cia annex had actually had taken a couple of libyan militia members prisoner in and they think that the attack on the consulate was an effort to try to get these prisoners back so that it's still being vetted well earlier i spoke with colonel morris davis a retired united states air force officer and attorney as well as a former prosecutor at guantanamo bay about these remarks and i think probably the most disturbing part of this has not been the if there were no personal details what's been the revelation about. potentially on this broad roles. and

access to information about a relationship with which you know the truth is i think those are legitimate questions that need to be explored yeah absolutely you know when you give someone without the same security clearance as that kind of information. i think the whole country has a right to ask questions and be worried but i want to talk to sort of a bigger picture here colonel davis about perception there's a sense by a small group of people again that the extramarital affair is not the issue it is the affair that general petraeus had with the media i want to play a couple of examples here. some. have suggested that perhaps just like general dwight eisenhower in the early fifty's think you might have some fine take off your uniform and run for president is not the craziest assertion possible he would certain he's the best known military man in the united states he would certainly help mitt romney's credibility the most controversial thing is i would say the real controversy here is the awesome or incredibly awesome

. well this is very painful but the letter of resignation from the director of central intelligence has been submitted. so quite a few members of the media here devastated to learn the news but before that general petraeus mentioned dozens of times first as a possible presidential candidate then as a possible running mate to written mitt romney. talk a little bit about this about this aspect. it did an article back in two thousand and four called it affected engagement with the media since the military typically has been pretty flat but it in dealing with the media but there is that balance between. engaging with the media and becoming too close with the media and it certainly appears that general mcchrystal betrays may or may have crossed that line and it's disappointing i think you know as a retired military officer i think most of us there today being veterans i think a lot of us look at other military officers when they do well we feel like you know

one of us has done well when they do poorly we feel like one of us fell down so even though he was the director of the cia at the time and retired from the military i mean i think a lot of folks he'll always be known as general petraeus mr innes a disappointment to see this kind of a failure. yeah i mean glenn greenwald i know argues that this swooning by the media over the general for the last several years illustrates a larger problem and that is military worship i know in his article greenwald refers to michael hastings work and writes betrayers has left a string of failures and even scandals behind him a disastrous iraq a training program a worsening of the war in afghanistan the attempt to convert the cia into a paramilitary force a series of misleading statements about the benghazi attack and the constant killing of innocent people in the muslim world without a whiff of due process transparency or oversight so colonel davis i mean i guess i want to get your take i know you're an attorney and you have

a long military history you're not a media expert but you know the media likes to refer to itself as the fourth estate as another check and balance to the system of fairness and making sure things that happen in this country are right and just talk a little bit about that military worship and the history of it. well we've always had a relationship going back to you know the civil war in the loosies grant and general eisenhower and work too and we've always had this fascination with military leaders we've kind of put them up on a on a pedestal and i guess you know it's regrettable we've been at war for over a decade now when you think about the words the two names that come to mind are mcchrystal and petraeus will forever have an asterisk next to their names because of what happened at the end of their career so again i think the public i mean you know the military is fighting for the public and the public has a right to information to know what their military doing but there's got to be that separation certainly military leaders need to make sure they're maintaining good

relations with the military but appropriate relations and i think the media has a duty to make sure that they remain objective and not get caught up in the hype but tell me how this works because i know one of the kind of the new leads today that a lot of people are talking about is because of his retirement general petraeus may not have to testify before congress about what happened this year september eleventh in libya talk a little bit about you know that kind of that that angle of this story. right now well sir talk today about whether you could face court martial if they take this back to his period on active duty when his relationship began with ms broadwell again apparently the inappropriate didn't begin until after according what about what i've read and heard. i think that's unlikely that they would take him back on active duty to pursue that but it really concerns me the message that it sends you know the fear forces in the midst of a sexual scandal at lackland air force base the former deputy commander of the

eighty second airborne was in court last week basing sexual misconduct charges and again the general mcchrystal in the most famous general of modern time to be caught up in this kind of scandal even in certain stances are markedly different i think it still sends a message to the troops that you know it's not a good message on testifying before congress i'm not sure if his resignation is effective immediately made assume is no longer a government employee still congress can issue a subpoena require him to show up and testify that the administration has an interesting position you know general petraeus was a national hero and the scandal to erupt certainly not. favorable for the administration how they choose to treat miss broadwell will be interesting to see as you may know you know in the ninety year history of the espionage act up until president obama taking office there were three people indicted in mind last years

and as of last week there have been seven indicted by the obama administration james has so berger was just indicted for improperly possessing classified information which is what alleged is alleged that this broadwell had on her computer. so it ministry should probably choose to do. yes certainly a lot of unknowns at this point in this very transitional time as we've just sort of wrapped up the election i guess at this point you've just got to hope that the correct lessons are learned from this and improved upon retired colonel morris davis professor at howard university school of law thanks so much well across the country today many people are honoring america's veterans observing veterans day and saying thank you this is also the time that lawmakers are getting ready for what might be the final major fight of this congressional session here in washington the fight over the so-called fiscal cliff part of which involves cutting defense spending in

a major way but what does the federal holiday mean when returning soldiers can't find jobs or access benefits to treat mental and physical injuries suffered on the battlefield how can we better fight for the people who have risked their lives to fight for us to answer these questions i was joined earlier by michael prysner the founder of march forward also iraq war veteran himself. first of all i wanted to mention that on veterans day there's very much an attempt to have it really be a political holiday one that just has kind of slogans that everyone can agree with and no one that will be against. a holiday that says that everything we did and everything we did in the u.s. military was good and just an honorable and therefore we should be appreciated and it's a holiday that tries very hard to cover up the fact that the wars that our veterans especially of this generation have been sent to had people on the other side of those wars and so as we get into the discussion about how veterans today are living

here in the united states i think we also have to recognize that there are people on the other side of us foreign policy whose lives were made infinitely worse by the actions of the us military and by u.s. foreign policy and i think we need to recognize those people as well but of course here in the united states of the situation for veterans today is one that's absolutely abysmal i mean one in three adult homeless people you see on the street are veterans of the suicide rate for veterans is literally eighteen a suicide per day let me interrupt you really quickly michael because we actually have made a graphic sort of so people can digest these numbers really help the pain a clearer picture of the state of veterans affairs number that we saw you said it was even higher than that but we saw that fourteen veterans make up fourteen percent of the homeless population sixty seven thousand and also an estimated sixteen hundred to one thousand nine hundred veterans receiving. care commit suicide each year about eight hundred ninety six thousand disability compensation

or pension claims were pending as of november seventh and finally twenty seven percent of afghanistan and iraq war veterans suffer from p.t.s.d. so michael you were sort of laying this out we just wanted to put it up so it was easy for people to to really get a grasp of but let's talk about this i mean when we talk about defense spending why are more resources not devoted to the defenders themselves. well because defense spending isn't really for the rank and file soldiers who are being sent to risk life and limb that defense spending is for the defense industry and so all you have to do is walk around washington d.c. you see the major defense contractors all around the city and actually ads all over the city saying buy this new armored vehicle buy this new drone buy this new fancy tank will most pedestrians in washington d.c. aren't in the market to buy fifty armored vehicles or tanks these are ads for the

generals and officers who work in the pentagon who go out to dinner at five star steak houses with the c.e.o.'s from the defense industry they talk about business deals and say hey this this product that cost a billion dollars that sounds sweet i'll take a million of those and it's something that probably really has no purpose in anyone's life and so the defense spending is really just faucet that of our funds of our tax dollars that is turned on and just poured into this massive bucket that's held by those who are profiting from war and militarism and so we're actually seeing cuts to the things that actually affect veterans you know for example the post nine eleven g.i. bill i mean one of the few benefits that actually veterans coming back from iraq and afghanistan actually have even though many of them can't use that because the graduation rate for iraq and afghanistan vets is about three percent right now because of the psychological and physical trauma associated with war but even that g.i. bill is being cut and so while defense spending is going up as president obama bragged

about in his foreign policy debate with mitt romney that defense spending has gone up every year he has been in office there's actually cuts happening to the things that affect veterans the most and so education is one of those but employment is a big problem you're more likely to be unemployed if you're a veteran of the iraq and afghanistan war than if you never joined the military homelessness is just proportionate foreclosure and eviction is disproportionate mental health problems and substance abuse is just proportionate. and these are things that could be addressed very quickly and very adequately if only the funds were allotted to those things but the reality is those controlling the funds are putting those things towards those who are making billions and billions of dollars off of our suffering and our hardship instead of the veterans who actually need the help and mike let me get your insight i know you spent time as a soldier in iraq you're actively involved in the veterans' movement do you think that there's any way to prevent p.t.s.d. while soldiers are still deployed and also what do you think can be done once soldiers return. well no i mean there's no way to stop p.t.s.d.

once people are deployed i mean people are coming back with severe psychological trauma not because they're going to afghanistan and building roads and schools and passing out candy but because they're part of maintaining a brutal occupation against the civilian population and so the way that we end this crisis is by ending the war and that's actually something that most soldiers want and most civilians here in the united states wants and so on this holiday when there's all of this ceremony and pomp and circumstance from the generals and from the politicians saying that they appreciate us and support us they're actually sending us over and over again in our loved ones in our brothers and sisters over and over again to a war they admit is lost a war that they admit has no point where that they admit the u.s. will have to withdraw from or retreat from as it is now doing in slow motion but are responsible for the constant loss of life and limb and mind for absolutely no other purpose than they want to protect their careers and so the reality is as much

as these elected officials and non elected officials in the pentagon try to say that this is a day to show that how great we are really quite literally throwing our lives away and then refusing to care for us if we're able to come home in one piece all right michael prysner the founder of the march forward and also mike is an iraq war veteran thanks for being with us today. onto a story now that just might renew your faith that solutions to big problems don't all have to be political or based on greed that some actions being taken right now are rooted in basic logic and even more so in kindness i'm talking about the rolling jubilee new program launched by members of the occupy wall street movement they've been raising money to purchase distressed consumer debt from financial firms at a very reduced price so once they own the ones that they forgive it here's a little bit more how it normally when people need money to pay for i don't know education buying a house medical bills they go to a bank to take out

a loan they have to pay back as debt over time and investors purchase the debt to make money on the interest the borrower pays each month but one of our is unable to make that monthly payment the value of that debt goes down investors will sell it to debt collectors for pennies on the dollar debt collectors make a living by hounding those borrowers for the money they make a profit by getting people to pay back every dollar so that is where the rolling jubilee comes in the strike that movement wants to purchase this debt for pennies on the dollar however instead of trying to squeeze the money out of borrowers they would buy the debt for the purpose of giving it essentially making that debt go away to discuss this and more i was joined earlier by our two correspondent on a stasia in new york and lauren lyster host of capital account here on r t. why i love some occupy wall street haters might have been assuming that the movement has started really laying low and not doing much in the last several months they have been working on this project that's been dubbed people's bailout by the people the

rolling jubilee and basically experts are saying that this is one of the best ideas possibly the occupy wall street movement has ever had this strike that project what it entails like you explained is basically buying distressed debt for pennies on the dollar and instead of hounding the burdened enough debt owners to get the money out of them what occupy wall street is going to do is it's merely going to abolish it so just completely wipe it out so instead of having that buyers hounding these people occupying holt's to help these people out and make sure they don't have to deal with this anymore we spoke with wall street former wall street employee and now occupy wall street activist alexis goldstein she broke it down for us take a listen normally like if you default on the loan there's all these collections agencies that can buy your debt and then they harass you harass you harass you and it's like three percent of the people they get the money from. they do ok because they buy the debt for pennies on the dollar so what we're doing is we're trying to buy a million dollars worth of debt which only cost fifty thousand dollars because it's

pennies on the dollar and abolish it and so people will get a phone call saying you know instead of getting a phone call from a collections agency they'll get one phone call saying hey occupy wall street bought your debt it's been abolished and if you feel like helping you know give us five bucks to help somebody else. sounds like a phone call i'm sure many people would be very happy to receive now us right that estimates that as little as fifty thousand dollars could abolish a million dollars worth of debt and it's really small donations that they're looking for they're saying twenty five bucks could raise five hundred dollars one hundred dollars could read to raise two thousand and ready the clock has been ticking they have a clock on their websites and last time i checked a couple of minutes ago they've already collected donations more than one to one thousand dollars and they're hoping this could abolish as much as one point over one point eight million dollars and of course the biggest event of the week is the fundraiser that takes place in new york city this thursday where it's

a variety show it's an online telethon and they're hoping to really gather the big money on thursday all right let me go to lauren now lauren we hear so much in washington about bailing out banks and about debt forgiveness and what to do about it what do you think about this as a solution to this i love what i love about this is so often we hear about problems like get problems like student loans and overindebtedness in terms of what is the government going to do to solve this why is the government bailing out banks when not people well there are a number of reasons to explain why that's happening having to do it just the way things are structured corporate interest all those sorts of things so what i love about this is it's not asking what can the government do to help it is a private sector solution alexis goldstein's a former wall street employees she knows how the big banks work she's probably going less play with in their own game you know don't distress debt is offered at pennies on the dollar let's buy it in abolish it debt forgiveness is one of these issues that constantly comes up ok over indebtedness is terrible for the economy

when the private sector is so indebted they're de leveraging they're not spending they're just drowning you know so there's this whole argument about debt forgiveness they goes on we talk about it on our show all of the time with economists like steve keen and people call for debt you believe but you know if the government. doing that in fact bankruptcy law has been made tougher over the years in the united states because bankruptcy you could argue it is debt forgiveness and that's how people go about absolving themselves that they're their debt at a great consequence obviously because bankruptcy is horrible for their credit but that is the way to do it but that's been a tougher and tougher and tougher so here is a debt you believe scenario it's brought on by the public sector they are beating wall street at their own game if this works out and i love it absolutely and you know we were doing research about this program and we took a look at the web site the rolling jubilee website and they have on their some pretty staggering statistics more than seventy seven percent of american households are actually in debt more than half of bankruptcies about sixty two percent are

caused by medical illness and tuitions at the student loan skyrocketing student loans reached more than one trillion dollars real briefly on a stance the i know for the last few years you've been doing a number of stories really giving a face to what this means what's going to take in your opinion for a systematic overall well of course the i think it's definitely going to take a lot but this is really a wonderful love wonderful step where as lauren mentioned people don't have to rely on the government on the corporations to do something for them and to hopefully leave them alone and bail them out this is something that the people are doing themselves and the numbers are insane like you mentioned on average one in seven americans is getting hounded by debt collectors on a daily basis and this is something that's a huge issue that's burdening so many people and curiously with this project some experts are saying this is a wonderful idea and it's definitely going to help out some people because of course the numbers are so huge that collecting enough money to

a race you know it's a student that for example like you mentioned over a trillion dollars is going to take a very very long time and some of them are saying even though a very small percentage of people will most likely be helped by this project it's a wonderful step forward it's a wonderful beginning it's. approved. where people are taking matters into their own hands and this is what occupy has been about since the very beginning so are they going to all be able to change the system overnight probably not of course the but it's a good beginning and lauren i want to go back to something you said you said this is an example of everyday people sort of beating wall street at their own game and what are the chances though that wall street is not going to be happy about this some of these big banks are going to say wait a minute we don't want these people to have their loans forgiven we want them to learn a lesson because there's a vested interest for people to collect the money and you know perhaps people there wouldn't be customers for this distressed debt if they were going to be able to recoup that so there's a lot of incentives involved on behalf of the banks and the debt collectors and

that sort of thing and in fact looking back to a similar type of program that was being done or attempted to be done with home mortgages and an allowance short sales then to have those those homeowners stay in their homes and they're trying to do a same thing by buying distressed mortgage debt and then restructuring for the borrower evidently the report of the felix salmon who writes for reuters talked about one of these the american homeowner preservation which was one of these types of programs and he said that the banks didn't want to play ball that the banks were opposed to that they didn't want to do this ironically that the reason cited was moral hazard which i think that they're hers i just don't think that anybody on wall street bank can can say that with a straight face when they're talking about anyone anymore because there's so much moral hazard still enabled on wall street in terms of bailouts but so it does look like there is an evidence of similar things where there has been resistance to wall street however what kind of political capital does wall street really have right now the amount of them of the supporters of this are sending they're saying you

know what this is perfect because it makes wall street and some of the people the executives in these big banks not be able to say you know i'm going to put a stop to this because they're going to just look even more greedy and dampen the already very damp and reputation that they have. so so in that way it could be an even better solution just real briefly honest us a well i still have you occupy wall street a lot of people thought it was dead we saw them organized in an extraordinary way just in the last few weeks to to really help victims of hurricane sandy and now this what does this mean overall on a broad level while of course what this means is that the people who are hoping that when the massive get left the streets of the united states that would be the end of the fight and what we have seen happen is that not being the case we've known there's been tremendous effort when it comes to the post hurricane sandy relief that occupy has carried out their hope had several other programs that

they've worked on to try to put regulation this is just really another another way of showing that the group is very much around and even though they can't be on the streets chanting the slogans that we all know very well at this point they're doing these really more productive things now with their time in terms of helping out specific people that knew what he was putting those slogans into action are to correspond on a stasia charge going to also laura lister host of council account while after a week of negotiations the national hockey league and its players may be moving closer to ending the lockout but that will not make up for the fifty eight days and counting without any n.h.l. hockey games here in the united states in the meantime some players have headed overseas to get into the rink including fan favorite washington capitals player alexander ovechkin r.t. caught up with ovi to talk about playing in front of his fellow russians have options with his chemical. almost there but.

where we're good relationship with the serious weather friend i talk to most of the time but. right now i'm here and you know i'm happy the course it's it's a different hokey here than the n.h.l. it's a different rinks different nice different speed less contacts here not many here it's but. i don't think i can change like a like a player the person you know i play i play my best and i try to do my best and i would show you came into the zone in from the blue or you can should the rich showed in the score goes from here it's very tough to score because it's. a couple more meter so you have to skate and you can feel the difference behind than that and from the and the only problem with what i have in washington i miss it i miss my friends i miss my family. but again you professional and if you have

a time to relax you have to you have to use it but most of the time you you know have a day off you don't have a time to do some something crazy like you always do in the summer and you will not like a person to grow up like a player and sometimes you when you was twenty years old and twenty one years old do you do some stuff with you that would do it through you know so i guess you learn from your mistakes you learn from your life and you're going to it's it's your preacher you know you can go out you can. do something crazy before the game because you're healthy you have that have to be stay hundred percent so. usually it's something working. well critics of the lockout say that as long as players and owners argue over revenue sharing it's the fans here in the us that are the real losers in this brawl not to mention the countless business owners who depend on the hockey faithful to boost their bottom line.